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Graveyard Love started as a side project circa 2006 in Auckland, New Zealand. At the time, Hamish (the sole artist) was playing in an indie-pop-rock band The Dilettantes (not the American one). With growing frustration about musical direction and general dysfunction, he turned to the aid of robots and machines. With his first sequencer (Roland mc-303) and synth (Korg Poly-800 mk II) the world of midi, sequencing and opportunity opened up.

Although the name Graveyard Love invariably brings with it connotations of corpses and necrotic romance, the moniker is actually a reference to Hamish’s long history of working the graveyard shift, be that at psychiatric hospitals, prisons, hotels or rehab clinics. While sleep hit the rest of us, late nights, artificial lighting and the bubble of other people’s madness were all feeding into what Hamish calls a spiritual connection to the modern disconnection. “There is something hollowing but ultimately satisfying about walking through a cold city after being up all night; through all the mess that a night might bring, this feeling was always enlightening. It was these experiences that feed my music.”

It’s important not to underestimate the role that setting has played in the creation of Graveyard Love’s sound. “I’ve lived in a lot of pretty shitty places, like a room with no natural light and a flat right next to the railway. I’ve always tried to make music that reflects that without becoming depressing. Like a wasteland with a broken fridge sitting in it – you should be able to make that sort of stuff beautiful, because that’s the view from your back window.” It’s for this reason that he describes his music as a kind of ambient gospel, or a distorted block of industrial buildings. “I like to think of the my music being the aural equivalent of pink light hitting a row of factories in the afternoon – at least, that’s what I’m aiming for.”

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Monkey RecordsBerlin, Germany

Monkey Records is an eclectic boutique independent record label founded in New Zealand in the year 2000 with offices in
Wellington and Berlin. Since August 2012, we have been releasing a track every week (or so) via our SoundCloud page, mostly new releases but also some gems from our back catalogue....more